Valkyria Chronicles

You can fire once per turn, an allowance you can use at any time while you have control. So you could use all your action points to advance the character as far as they can go, and then open fire on an enemy. Or you could move, fire, then move again to find cover. Should you stray into the sights of an enemy while moving, they'll fire at you, but this stops the moment you go into aiming mode. You can then take your time to line up your shot, and let fly with a volley of shots. Your target then gets a chance to respond in kind, so finding cover before attacking is always wise. Just by allowing you to try for headshots and other trappings of action games, it's far more visceral than the usual stat-based grid systems usually associated with the genre. If you want a handy soundbite comparison, imagine Full Spectrum Warrior going to a JRPG cosplay convention.

The fresh ideas don't end there though. Whereas most strategy games only allow you to move each unit once per turn, Valkyria is much more flexible. At the start of your turn you're allotted a number of Command Points. Each time you select a character, you use up one of these points, but how you spend them is up to you. You can select the same character twice in a row, either to push their advance further, or to pull them back out of harm's way if they run out of Action Points in the open. If you don't want to spend all your Command Points, any left over are carried into the next turn, allowing you to stockpile your options.

Characters downed in battle will lie on the battlefield. If you can reach them within three turns, a medic will come and transport them to safety, allowing you to recall them from a friendly base later. If you don't reach them in time, or if an enemy soldier reaches them first, then they're dead. Forever. Lost. Gone.

This isn't quite the setback you'd expect, since all characters in the same class level up at the same time as you spend your EXP points, and receive the same weaponry, as you spend your loot on upgraded arms. The only reason to try and keep a specific soldier alive - apart from Welkin, whose survival is essential - is because, well, you like them. This is entirely possible as they're all fairly distinct, with unique faces and voices, and their own personalities which manifest on the battlefield as "potentials".

A male soldier who likes the ladies will receive a status boost when near to female squad-mates, for example. A soldier with hay fever will suffer a status drop if deployed in a rural location. Country-born soldiers are less effective when fighting in urban situations. There are even gay characters, racist characters...it's a real tangle of different social elements, and thankfully the game doesn't punish you too harshly if you don't pay attention to every last foible of every character. For those who like to go that little bit deeper, it's definitely a clever and charming way of squeezing a little extra efficiency out of your squad.

Sadly, as innovative as the combat is, it's not without its annoyances. The AI is far from stellar, both for the enemy and your own units when they're taking advantage of opportunity shots or returning fire. The enemy, for example, will often waste Command Points on repetitive manoeuvres. In the fifth chapter there's a special enemy tank which rolls forwards each turn, then rolls back again, using up four precious Command Points each time. A sniper in the sixth chapter does the same, popping out of cover, running around and then diving back into cover for no apparent reason. It often feels like you're facing an opponent stuck following a fixed script rather than dynamically reacting to your actions. With absolutely no multiplayer options, experienced strategists will be less than satisfied.